Anne Marie Delevante

Born on the Fourth of July in 1930, Anne Marie Delevante grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated Public School #9, then the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and completed one year of Cooper Union with a focus on fine arts. Her parents were Sigrid (Svenson) and Gunnar Nelson.

At age 16, she volunteered for the New York State Farm Corps and worked on a farm in Cooperstown, an area where many men had not returned from fighting in World War II. She had an indelible happy memory of everyone in town participating outdoors in a community square dance, from toddlers who could barely walk to elderly people.

In 1950, Anne Marie married Owen Delevante, a fellow student at Cooper Union, and worked in a variety of settings in New York City and New Jersey: for Commercial Factors and Ames Textile in New York, and for architects in Waldwick, an electrical engineer in HoHoKus, and a survey company in Ridgewood. In 1956, the couple bought a home in Glen Rock, where she lived for 58 years. When Owen opened a sole proprietor architectural office in Ridgewood, she helped in his practice, doing a range of jobs, until Owen's death in 1991. Soon afterwards, her elderly mother moved in with her. Anne Marie cared for Sigrid at home until her mother's death.

She had an active life as a volunteer. She learned Braille and belonged to Literacy Volunteers. At The Depot, a gift shop to benefit Family Counseling Service, she volunteered for several years in sales. And she volunteered at the Glen Rock Public Library.

Anne Marie and Owen traveled widely, taking two trips to Jamaica to visit his family, enjoying three voyages on the Queen Elizabeth II, and visiting all the Scandinavian countries, Canada and several European countries. With her second husband, Ed, annual vacations on Cape Cod were a special source of delight.

Having met Edward Breuer of Glen Rock while working with his wife, Lois, at the library, she began dating him in 2000 after Lois's death. They married in June 2002 and lived on Harding Road, where Anne Marie had been a Harding Road Gang member for years, building floats for Glen Rock's 4th of July parade. In 2014, they moved to Cedar Crest in Pompton Plains, NJ.

In Glen Rock, she was a member of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and was active in the women's group. After her marriage to Edward, she attended Community Church of Glen Rock, where her ashes will be laid to rest in the memorial garden, where his ashes were interred three years ago.

Anne Marie completed the New York Times crossword puzzle every day—in ink. She was an avid reader all her life. Her skill at sewing was widely known and appreciated, as she sewed for her parents, brother, friends and their children, even creating a deerskin vest for a friend who had felled a deer and had always wanted the vest. She described the task as like sewing butter. From conversation to gift-giving, she brought an artistic flair to everything she did.

She is survived by her nephew Gustav. Gus and Lucy Nelson live in Lisbon Falls, Maine with their three children, Keenan, Ezra and Mira.